Friday, 11 November 2011

I completed the stumpwork beetle yesterday afternoon and, whilst I think I need more practice, I'll share with you how it was done here. Hope you enjoy and find it at least a little interesting, and maybe even useful too!

The kit came with just an oval outline on the fabric. The first thing to do then, was to pad the outline with felt. There was no pattern given for it, so I just guess-timated and then trimmed to size. Then you stab stitch it in place. No need for lots of stitches, just a few are OK. You could even just put a few stitches in the centre of the felt and that would be fine too, but I prefer to have the edges secured so they don't get in my way when I'm working the next part.

The next step is to work satin stitches all across the body, completely covering the felt shape. Here you can see me working with three strands instead of the prescribed two again. No need to worry about covering outlines here, but it both saved needlestrokes and may even add to the height of the whole element.

The next photo shows the next two stages. First, five stitches were made from 'toe to head', fanning out at the bottom, but going into the same hole at the head. It's rather hard to photograph well, both lines of stitching being black, but I think you can just make it out here. After that, re-thread the needle with two strands of metallic green floss and put a few satin stitches over the front to form a head.

Next we move on the green wings and, as you can see in this shot, the satin stitches are worked from top to bottom, along the diagonal line formed by the five black stitches. You need to close them up slightly at the head end to both fit them all on and to stop them slipping off the side of the body.

Here you can see the completed satin stitches.

The next element is the legs and antennae. These were worked in just one strand of black stranded cotton and done in straight stitches and detached chain (lazy daisy), thus making the 'double' look of the first section of each leg. The antennae, of course, are just one straight stitch each coming out from the front of head (where else???!)

Finally, just stitch the eyes, two blue- or green-black seed beads, on to the front of the head and here he is, your stumpwork beetle!

I do apologise for the slightly blurry quality of one or two of the photos, but he's quite a simple little fellow and I'm sure you can find the materials for him easily, if not from the stash you already have. The green thread is the dark green one from the DMC Light Effects range and I daresay Kreinik will also have something that answers.

He's simply adorable! I love doing stumpwork and half the fun is seeing the personallity of the piece as you work. We don't get personallity from a perfectly stitched project, it comes from the tiny differences in our stitches and the way we finish it...

thank you for this tutorial, I live in egypt and i like so much the beetles! i begin an embroidery and i am happy to do this animal, i show you when it is finish in my blog : http://marieluxor.canalblog.com/you make wonderful things!Marie